My Food Story: ‘Bans Pihiri’, the mushroom that grows inside dried bamboo, is medicinal food

Bans Pihiri is a mushroom that grows inside dried bamboo during the rainy season. In villages, it is specially cooked to relieve cold, cough, and body chill. Families prefer to make it fresh, whenever it is collected from the forest during the monsoon season.

Bans Pihiri /Mushrooms

Ingredients

Fresh Bans Pihri (collected from the forest)

Cooking oil

Green chilies

Onion

Ginger

Garlic

Salt

For the second method

Garam masala

Besan (Chickpea flour)

Magodi (lentil dumplings)

Method

Collect the mushroom from the forest and wash thoroughly. Cut into small pieces and fry in oil until golden brown. Add green chilies, onion, ginger, garlic, salt, and garam masala; cook well. For the second method, wash and dry, grind to a fine powder, then cook with besan and magodi.

My Food Story is a collection of stories and recipes that celebrate India’s traditional plant-based ingredients sourced from local biodiversity. You can see these recipes on our interactive dashboard (https://www.cseindia.org/page/myfoodstory).

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Basant Jhariya is a social worker from Madhya Pradesh